Auburn's new performance dance group called the Layman Group performed its first exhibition, "Man," Thursday night at the Jule Collins-Smith Museum.
Through a correlation of music, dialogue, audience response and improvisational dance, the one-night performance "Man" addressed the stereotypes and ideals of the meaning of manhood at home and within the larger society, according to the JCSM Web site.
"The purpose of 'Man' is not to make statements about masculinity, but to let people watch and listen and form their own opinions," said Doc Waller, executive artistic director of the Layman Group. "We provide the vehicle, and you (the audience) provide the destination."
Sam Phillips, art student at Oberlin College in Ohio, performed an integral role in the exhibition.
"Eli Jolley and I represented the insecurities of the man character represented by Doc Waller," Phillips said. "We served a myriad of roles for Waller, but ultimately embodied the insecurities of mankind as a whole."
The performance concluded with a dance featuring a man and a woman.
The female represents the juxtaposition of the man's insecurities and the truth, Waller said.
"Men have insecurities they don't even know they have," he said. "For me, man is more of a person in totality if he sees more of him (self)."
Waller said he has been a recreational dancer for most of his life, he said, but he became professional when he joined a West African dance company called Ayoluwa in Pensacola, Fla., in 2004.
After his one-year participation in Ayoluwa, Waller returned to Auburn to launch his non-profit performance arts organization, the Layman Group.
"I've always known that when I started an arts organization I'd include a dance company."
To gain better perspective, Waller moved to Atlanta for a year and began to get back to acting and performing in theaters and improvisational dance companies.
"While I was there, I took time to talk to all the artistic leaders and directors I could," he said. "I literally took a year to study non-profit organizations before coming back to Auburn to start (the Layman Group)."
Much like Waller, Phillips said he has been performing in artistic venues since childhood.
"I think my first role was as a tree in 'Briar Rabbit,'" Phillips said. "I'm clumsy with bad balance, so I kept falling off the balance beam I had to stand on. I've come a long way since then."
Phillips said he saw Waller's group on facebook and sent him a message inquiring about how to get involved.
"We met at Starbucks and started shooting ideas around," Phillips said.
The organization is young, so it doesn't have the funding to support performances or performers, Waller said.
Everyone on staff volunteers his or her time to the organization.
"This was a short presentation put together on a whim with zero dollars," Waller said.
Phillips said he agreed.
"It was a grassroots effort, but (the audience) turned out much better than we expected," Phillips said.
One goal of the Layman Group is to change people's view of the arts and stereotypes associated with the arts.
"I think certain cities, like New York City, are places where the arts and creative lifestyles are seen as a necessity that makes the cities run rather than merely entertainment," Waller said. "NYC seems like a place where the arts have become the blood of the city. I want to bring that same type of blood back to Alabama."
While driving past a farm with large bales of hay scattered in the fields, he said he decided to organize a meeting in different locations every day during March to choreograph and perform dances.
"This shows that art can be anywhere," Waller said.
Another endeavor on the group's agenda, The Rainer Project, aims to connect young adults in the area who do not have the resources and ability to participate in arts education to popular, well-received artists in bigger cities, Waller said.
Over a six-month span, the children and artists will send each other personal videos - a mixture of modern art and technology - to get to know each other on a personal level.
At the end of the six-month span, the program will send the children to the city to meet the artist with whom they have been communicating, he said.
The Layman Group also plans to host a 24-hour film festival in which Auburn actors, playwrights and directors will converge in Lee County.
"They will have 24 hours to meet, learn about each other, write, cast, stage and direct a play," Waller said. "I have had to do that before, and it's the hardest, most creative thing I've ever done."
Furthermore, the group has a youth branch called The Loud Crowd, a performance art group that produces, writes and stages artistic performances, he said.
"The kids perform as themselves dealing with real issues," Waller said.
He said he also hopes to make the arts more accessible to a larger number of people in Auburn and surrounding areas though the efforts of the Layman Group.
"Many people don't know the arts have designated projects," Waller said, "so we want to take the arts out of traditional places and put them somewhere in the community where people can see them - where they will be impossible to ignore."
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